The Rule of Cool
by magicalyoyo
Summary: Or, A Biography of Otabek Altin: "Greatest Hits Compilation of the Dumbass Shit He Does, Volumes 1-?"


Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Yuri's tutor didn't need to explain it to him, although of course that hadn't stopped her. He was already achingly, intimately familiar with the concept.

A quadruple Salchow, when performed by a certain skater of exceptional skill and not-so-exceptional size, reached a height of fifty centimeters. A fifty kilogram Russian teenager, accelerating at nine-point-eight-one meters per second squared and with a stopping distance of several centimeters of bent knees, would hit the ice with close to four thousand newtons of force.

As an unrelated comparison, a professional boxer's punch clocked in at about five thousand newtons.

As a hopefully unrelated comparison, four thousand newtons is also the force required to break a tibia, when applied from the wrong – or right – angle.

When Yuri landed and hit the ice with enough energy to power sixty-five standard light bulbs for an hour, the ice, in its eye for an eye, equal and opposite reaction, hit him back with every bit of it.

His tutor had nodded and given him full marks, even though Yuri had ignored the actual homework in favor of calculating exactly how much he was fucking over his knees with each day of practice.

So, yes. Yuri was no stranger to the third law of motion, but he preferred to call it the first rule of everything.

If someone hit you, you hit them back just as hard.

If a debt was owed, it would be repaid to the letter.

In this sense, the reality of Otabek Altin shouldn't have come as a surprise.

See, Otabek was cool. He was really, extremely, leather-jacket-and-motorcycle, eyes-of-a-soldier awesome.

It was only to be expected that this must be balanced with an equal measure of absolute, jaw-dropping dorkiness.

:: :: ::

Spring 2017. Helsinki.

It felt like something out of a movie, but Yuri wasn't sure yet whether it was one of those cheesy American blockbusters that they showed on all the planes with the three cusses and one sex scene cut out in the most awkward, obnoxious fashion or if it was the last scene in an epic sci-fi battle where the buff protagonist managed to punch the alien warlord into a black hole five minutes before the universe imploded, but it was definitely one of the two.

He sank back into his hoodie and oversized sunglasses as the press conference proceeded. They had the medalists lined up behind rows of the ubiquitous speckle-grey folding tables that would undoubtedly claim fingers from at least half of the poor saps responsible for cleaning up. Sure, they were hidden under pretty blue tablecloths, but they were there. Lurking. Waiting.

Yuri was like a spy, he decided, hiding from the reporters in plain sight. Once he stepped outside, they'd ambush him again – if he was lucky. If he wasn't lucky, it would be the Angels. Journalists had rules. The Angels had pure, unadulterated, terrifying bloodlust. Except instead of blood, they wanted signatures, and Yuri couldn't even rely on the eventual promise of an untimely death to release him from their grasp.

Admittedly, it would have been more satisfying to be behind the table, but Mila had been on him to look on the bright side. So, positive fact number one, he wasn't being hunted for sport. Positive fact number two, Otabek looked really good with his hair messed up like that. Positive fact number three, it gave Yuri a great opportunity to set up an alibi for when he murdered JJ later that night.

Wait, rewind. Back to positive fact number two. Otabek.

Objectively true, Yuri decided, even if he hadn't previously spent _too_ much time contemplating the precise angles of Otabek's jawline when the light hit him from exactly the right angle, especially when he took a drink from his bottle of water just as the reporter asked him a question-

\- and choked on it, managing to only splutter a little before he leaned into the mic.

Yuri sat back again. It was only to be expected. After all, Otabek was cool, and funny, and his best friend, and as noted before, extremely attractive from even the most detached point of view, and Yuri was newly sixteen and trapped inside a body that tried to launch him into the sun without warning. It could have been uncomfortable. It could have been a repeat of that time last month when he'd caught himself thinking _hey, had Mila's legs always been that long_ and then spent the rest of the afternoon googling, a) whether men could be nuns, and b) if nuns had to be religious, because obviously Yuri was not to be trusted to even think about sex.

Waiting for it to be over somehow managed to feel even longer than being part of it – or maybe it really was taking forever because no one would tell JJ to shut his overly large mouth, except for the couple of times Yuri saw JJ jump and _knew_ that Otabek had kicked him under the table – but finally, _finally,_ everyone stood up and began to wander off like drunk, confused jellyfish. The cameras were still rolling, of course, and the journalists had begun to corner their marks. Yuri watched as two of them rounded on Otabek, like anyone except the Kazakhstani sports reporter would manage to get more than three words and a blank stare out of him.

Otabek saw them coming and Yuri, super secret agent extraordinaire, moved around to the side of the room and jerked his head to indicate that he'd mapped out an escape route that should get them back to the hotel with minimal illegal shortcuts.

This meant that he had a front-row seat for what happened next.

It was, in a way, beautiful.

Otabek stood up.

His knee caught the table, a speckle-grey monstrosity lurking under the pretty blue cloth, and Otabek put his hand down to steady it. At the same moment, he straightened his other leg, which was still hooked around the leg of his chair, because Otabek was physically incapable of sitting down like a normal human and not some species of sentient pretzel.

The chair went down.

Otabek went down.

The table went down.

The pretty blue tablecloth billowed out, covering the whole thing like a white sheet across a crime scene.

The cameras were still rolling.

From the bottom of the crumpled heap, Otabek gave a thumbs-up.

:: :: ::

Autumn 2017. Moscow.

It turned out that firsthand knowledge of how Otabek's brain sometimes cut contact with his body and left him to collapse in a truly spectacular tangle of limbs was not only a) unavoidable, and b) hilarious, it was also c) a necessary component of surviving their friendship.

Otabek's clumsiness had a blast radius. First, it was Otabek nearly dropping his phone into Yuri's tea and leaving them both soaked when he tried to catch it. Then, it was him leaning against the elevator buttons and pressing _every single one_ with his butt, forcing them to stop at each of the hotel's nearly two dozen floors until someone else stepped on and Otabek made a noise like an asthmatic goose and jumped out and made Yuri take the stairs with him.

On the ice, Otabek was powerful, precise, and controlled. Off the ice, he was a danger to society.

By the time the Rostelecom Cup rolled around, they'd spent enough time together for Yuri to have learned the basics of How To Survive Otabek Altin.

Lesson one: It comes out of nowhere. Entire days could pass without incident, and then one afternoon Otabek would be strolling down the street like any other functional human and _bam,_ Yuri would get all of a split-second's warning as Otabek's attention wandered before he slammed into a streetlamp and lay on the pavement whining until Yuri could stop laughing and help peel him off the sidewalk.

Lesson two: It happened most often in times of stress… and Otabek's definition of stress was its own disaster. Competitions? Fine. He was chill. Or at least, he was more chill than Yuri, who always spent the night before he skated trying not to claw the wallpaper off the hotel walls. However, trying to catch the metro? Oh, no, _that_ was a problem. Yuri would treasure the memory of the time Otabek launched himself through the sliding doors as they began to close and smacked his face against the window on the other side. It was second only to Otabek's expression as he realized that Yuri, frozen in place by the amusement-surprise-shock of the moment, hadn't followed him onto the train.

And, most vitally, lesson three: It was contagious.

Of course, knowing something and being able to make use of it are entirely different things.

Yuri should have known that _something_ lurked on the horizon, because Otabek was in top form: his leather jacket had made a reappearance as the weather grew chilly, his hair had grown out just enough so it flopped in front of his eyes like he was about to star in a music video, and he'd gained the eternal favor of Yuri's grandfather by pulling his laptop out of his bag in the middle of lunch to demonstrate a heretofore unknown expertise in 1980s Russian heavy metal.

(Yuri's taste in music hadn't sprung from nowhere, but most people laughed when he informed them of that fact. Otabek had not.)

It was safe to say that Otabek was a really cool caterpillar who climbed into a cocoon since the last time Yuri saw him and came to Moscow as a fucking _awesome_ butterfly. Like, the kind of butterfly all the other butterflies dreamed of being even though they knew they didn't have a chance.

Plus, Yuri was now _just_ a bit taller than Otabek, but _just_ short enough that Otabek looked up to meet his eyes without having to tilt his head, which meant that Yuri had, several times a day for the past three days, been getting unintended bedroom eyes from his very attractive best friend and this was _fine._ Absolutely not a problem. No way.

In conclusion, it really wasn't Yuri's fault. It was that the universe itself had tipped from cold and uncaring to flat out malicious, and he was a teenager trying to deal with growth spurts and hormones and homework and international figure skating competitions, which, let's be honest, is not a recipe for a calm and stable individual. Really, it was a miracle that Yuri managed as well as he did.

Because, _hypothetically_ , imagine that Yuri was hyped up on enough competition-fueled adrenaline to give a whale the shakes. Imagine that his best friend had suddenly developed a new habit of letting his hand brush against Yuri's elbow or rest on his shoulder for a moment.

It was enough to drive anyone to the brink, especially the day before the free skate.

Yuri laid the case out in the court of _Oh God Why._

First, it wasn't _his_ fault that Otabek's laugh was distracting enough that Yuri forgot that they were waiting to cross the street and not skipping through a field of flowers.

Second, it wasn't _his_ fault that Otabek chose to get his attention by placing the palm of his hand on the middle of Yuri's back.

Third, it wasn't _his_ fault that Lilia, Mistress of the Dark, She Who Ruled With an Iron Fist, was really into good posture. As in, _slouch and you will not only pray for death but for the peace of Hell itself once I'm done with you_ style of good posture.

Fourth, it wasn't _his_ fault that when Otabek wasn't himself being an utter disaster of a human, he was the Typhoid Mary of human disasters.

Yuri never had a chance.

What Yuri _did_ have, however, was an overabundance of nerves, willpower stretched to the breaking point, and the immediate reaction of snapping into perfect _shoulders back chin up hips in line_ ballet posture the moment anyone touched his back out of the simple instinct to live to see another day.

What Otabek had was the up close and personal introduction between his cheekbone and the back of Yuri's head.

"Ow," said Otabek, in the same conversational he might have used to ask Yuri if he could borrow a charger. Then, as Yuri's mental gears ground into motion with a screeching _oh fuck,_ Otabek whined, " _Yura."_

"Shit, Beka." Yuri rubbed the back of his own head, which throbbed indignantly. Had he cut himself on Otabek's face? Was his skull about to spontaneously and mercifully explode? "Fuck, are you okay?"

"I think you liquefied my brain," Otabek moaned.

An icepack and a movie later, they parted ways.

"Yo, Beka. You're on speaker," Yuri said as the call connected. He made eye contact with Yakov, who had gone from puce to a quite nice shade of salmon and no longer seemed in immediate danger of a stroke. "How has your day been?"

"Hi, Yura." Otabek cleared his throat. "It's been good."

"And your face?"

"It's fine, don't worry."

"So, Beka," Yuri continued. He prayed for the gods to grant him fifteen seconds of Otabek's natural chill. "Do you know why your coach called my coach and told him I gave you a black eye and I got screamed at for half an hour for fighting?"

"Um."

"Yes?"

"I might have told my coach you gave me a black eye."

Yakov closed his eyes, his lips moving silently. Yuri thought he was counting to ten under his breath.

"On purpose?"

"I might have skipped the details."

Otabek was going to be the death of him, and the court case would be dismissed because the jury laughed themselves into unconsciousness.

"You know what I tell Potya when he's being a little shit?" Yuri growled. "I tell him he's lucky he's cute."

There was a beat of silence.

"Good thing I'm cute."

"You're damn lucky, Altin."

There was a beat of silence before Yakov grunted and shuffled away. It was another moment before Yuri's ears caught up with his mouth.

Maybe if he _actually_ punched Otabek, Yakov would do Yuri a favor and murder him.

:: :: ::

The other thing about Otabek is that he had a sixth sense for timing. That is, he had the unerring ability to pick the worst possible moment, and if the moment wasn't bad enough already, he'd step up and make it worse.

Like, was it really necessary for Otabek to launch his attempt at convincing Yuri to try a poptart – a mild obsession resulting from some early teen years spent in America, he insisted – _right_ before Lilia and her _if-you-eat-junk-food-I-will-kill-you-before-it-can_ motto walked in? No. No, it wasn't. And then was it absolutely vital that Otabek panic, shove the entirety of his pastry into his mouth in an attempt to hide it, and proceed to spend the next several minutes choking while Yuri was left holding the box and trying to explain his innocence to Lilia? Also no.

The point being, Otabek could turn any innocuous moment into a disaster. That would have been bad enough on its own, even without Yuri's ever-growing encyclopedia on all the ways that Otabek was a complete mess of a human.

And, as discussed, when he picked his moments, he _picked_ them.

The banquet after Worlds was always the worst, in Yuri's opinion, and that was even more true this year. Not only was everyone so fucking done by the end of the season, tottering around on injuries that hadn't had a chance to really heal since September, but half of them had just finished up at the fucking _Olympics_ and they were expected to hop right back up and haul off to Italy for another competition. Then, of course, the judges went and said that their performances seemed _flat._ Flat. Really.

Basically, Yuri wanted a nap. He was not in a state to deal with excitement of any sort.

But Otabek? Otabek wanted a drink.

"If you get wasted, I'm not taking care of you," Yuri informed him.

It was a lie. They both knew it was a lie. They both knew that Yuri had painkillers and water bottles stashed in his room for easy access the next morning, just like he'd made a habit of ever since Otabek managed to get a hangover off of a single flute of champagne and called Yuri to inform him that he was literally dying and wanted to say goodbye.

Otabek did not, in a moment of grace and mercy, call Yuri on the lie.

"Want me to grab you something?"

"Is there a drinking age here?" Yuri asked, though not because he wanted to know answer. It was Italy. There was a drinking age. No one cared. "I'm good."

By _I'm good,_ Yuri meant, of course, that he was very much _not_ good at managing the flow between his brain and his mouth in the best circumstances. By _I'm good,_ Yuri meant _I will die before turning into Katusdon._ Before he'd lost all control of his life, Yuri would have said that he'd never be at risk of stripping on the dance floor and wrapping himself around Otabek like a horny, lovesick limpet. Yuri mourned the loss of his status as a functioning member of society. He clung to the tattered remains of his dignity.

Unfortunately, Otabek had other ideas.

"If they start dancing, I'm jumping out the window," Yuri said, eyeing The Couple. Viktor was smiling. When Viktor was smiling, bad things were going to happen.

"They _are_ dancing, Yura," replied Otabek.

"They're dancing. They're not _dancing._ "

Otabek gave him a look. Or, more accurately, he gave him a Look that managed to run the gamut from bemused to judgmental with a pit stop at fond and a final destination of _done with your shit, Yura._

"Dance-offs, Beka. I mean dance-offs." Yuri shuddered. Sure, if pressed, he might admit that it had been kind of fun. However, it would take an industrial hydraulic press, because he hadn't just lost. He'd been obliterated. "I should have won and everyone knew it."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Mila, the eavesdropping hag, snort a gulp of her disconcertingly neon cocktail down the front of her dress. Yuri averted his gaze fast enough to give himself whiplash as Sara Crispino gasped dramatically and began to dab at Mila's cleavage with a cocktail napkin. It was a close call for his sanity.

Which was then thrown off a cliff, because Yuri found himself looking directly into Otabek's eyes.

"Yura."

"Beka." Yuri gave Otabek his best _I'm not having a heart attack_ face.

"Are you okay?"

"What? Of course I am."

"You looked kinda sick for a second." Otabek blinked slowly at Yuri, and then at his wine glass, which was empty. He set it down on a nearby table. "Yura."

"Yes, that is my name," replied Yuri, and then _mayday, all hands on board, sound the alarm_ because Otabek's hands were cupping Yuri's face and they were warm and slightly rough with calluses and oh god, Yuri hadn't shaved before dinner, did his face feel weird and scratchy or _no,_ what he called his stubble was more like duckling fluff and was his face supposed to be scratchy and _that's_ why Otabek was thinking it felt weird and _oh, fuck._ He was a goner and _death was worth this._

"Yura, I love your dancing," Otabek said, holding Yuri's gaze. "Your ballet is like- like a cheetah. You look like you could murder everyone in the audience and they'd applaud if they weren't dead, but you wouldn't because murder's not a part of ballet and you're good at it so you can't."

Tipsy Otabek was talkative Otabek.

"Hnnnngh," Yuri choked out.

"I love your fun dancing too," continued Otabek, apparently unaware of Yuri's crisis. "You're beautiful, and you look like a baby giraffe. A badass, carnivorous baby giraffe, but also like you have seven knees?"

"Ngh," agreed Yuri.

"Baby giraffes don't win dance-offs, Yura," Otabek told him earnestly. "And that's okay. They should dance exactly how they want to, but they shouldn't be upset about losing two and half years later. Okay?"

"Okay," Yuri said, and then he immediately wished he could take it back as Otabek let go of his face. He didn't have seven knees. He had zero, and lumps of gelatin where his joints should go.

 _Pull yourself together, Plisetsky,_ Yuri told himself. _Act fucking natural._

Sure, under all other circumstances, it would be natural for Yuri to eviscerate anyone who said he danced like a baby giraffe. However, in _these_ circumstances, Otabek had called him beautiful in the same breath and was now looking at him with that concerned face again.

"Yura, are you sure you're feeling fine?"

Fine? Yeah. Thirty seconds away from death, but fine. Yuri opted for a distraction instead.

"Hey, look, I think JJ's trying to befriend Leo."

Otabek's expression flickered, and he sighed. "I'll intervene."

The second Otabek's back was turned, Yuri slumped into a chair. Mila's breathe tickled his ear as she wheezed with laughter behind him.

"Just how many drinks has he had?" she giggled. Yuri winced. The universe was cruel, and his descent into madness came with witnesses.

"Two," Yuri groaned, dropping his head into his hands.

She cut herself off mid-laugh. "He's not drunk."

"He's not."

Mila blinked at him, then grabbed his face, because apparently that's what people did to Yuri now. "Yura. Yurka. Yurik. Dear, darling Yurochka." He tried to pull away, but she tutted and sank her claws into his cheeks. "Why the fuck did you not ask him to dance with you?"

Yuri gaped, giving her what he assumed was his best impression of a fish out of water. "I-"

"Yura, you are-" Mila paused, glancing over his shoulder, and released his chin. "Hey, Otabek. Did you know that Yura is a human disaster?"

"I did," replied Otabek, setting his hand on top of Yuri's head and smiling down at him.

"Have you looked at yourselves, assholes?" Yuri yelped. He glared at Mila to let her know that she was, literally, the _worst._ "Ludmila," he hissed. "Talked to Sara lately?"

She winked back at him and inspected her fingernails, which were now very, _very_ short. "Oh, Yura, I thought you didn't want any details."

No, no, _no,_ Yuri did not need that thought in his head. He gagged.

Otabek tipped his head in confused innocence. As he opened his mouth to ask a question that should never, ever be spoken aloud, Yuri made up for every bad deed he'd ever done and kicked Otabek in the shin.

 _"_ _Do not,"_ he mouthed desperately. "Don't say _anything._ "

Otabek closed his mouth again.

"Well, I'm off," Mila interjected, standing up. She leaned in to kiss Yuri on the cheek and murmured, "Don't try me, Plisetsky. I will destroy you."

Then she was gone.

Yuri glanced at Otabek, who had removed his hand, and Yuri wondered briefly about the potential for a light headbutting. It worked for Potya, after all.

God, Mila was right. He was a mess. And shit, there was a slippery slope, because if she was right about that, then maybe she also had a point about asking Otabek to dance. Had the moment passed? Yuri swallowed hard and sat up a bit straighter.

Otabek sank into the chair Mila had vacated. "I'm exhausted," he said, cheek pressed against the tablecloth. "Yura, I'm so tired."

"Beka, no," Yuri growled. "Beka, don't you fucking dare-"

Too late. Otabek was asleep, except that Otabek didn't sleep. He _hibernated._

Yuri contemplated the merits of screaming as he looked around for someone to help him carry Sleeping Beauty back to the hotel before he drooled all over the table.

:: :: ::

It could be said that, after the Dance That Never Happened, Yuri was a tiny bit stressed. A little frustrated. Maybe even out of sorts.

This might, just _might,_ have contributed to a case of nerves bad enough that it was about to assume corporeal form and burst from Yuri's chest, Alien-style, leaving everyone else grossed out and shuffling their feet in secondhand embarrassment.

As he dragged himself through Almaty International Airport, Yuri thought he was doing quite a good job of staying chill, all things considered. In fact, it was downright fucking normal for Yuri to shriek Otabek's name when he spotted him hovering by the baggage claim and sipping from a bottle of water and steamroll a group of British tourists who should have known better than to get in his way.

Otabek jumped and spun around, looking for Yuri.

As Yuri barreled towards him, Otabek lifted a hand to wave. Unfortunately, it was the same hand that held his bottle of water, which fountained through the air to thoroughly douse Yuri, the floor, and a handful of hapless bystanders.

 _Fuck,_ Yuri thought, as his foot hit the puddle. However, wet tiles were _nothing_ compared to an ice rink, and he hadn't spent over a decade training for nothing. In fact, it was almost graceful as he dropped into a knee slide and skidded to a halt.

His elegant stop was somewhat spoiled by a collision with Otabek's legs.

" _Oof,_ " Yuri wheezed, as Otabek fell on top of him. "Hey, Beka."

"Hi Yura," Otabek replied with a grimace. He scrambled to his feet and offered a hand to Yuri, muttering, "I fell for you again."

Yuri hit the floor as Otabek flushed scarlet.

"I mean I fell on you?" Otabek stammered, and Otabek, as a rule, did not _stammer._ He said some truly dumbass shit, but he said it with confidence. "I- you fell-"

"Beka." Yuri cut him off. Had he hit his head on the way down? Did the plane food poison him and this was a vivid hallucination? "Are you… flirting?"

The tips of Otabek's ears were red. Yuri watched the pink flush spread across his scalp under the thin fuzz of close-shaved hair.

"For, uh, the past year," Otabek admitted, hauling Yuri upright. His expression had gone beyond blank, which was an interesting contrast to his glowing cheeks.

Yuri held Otabek's gaze and realized several things simultaneously.

First: Yuri was, unarguably and forever more, the world's biggest idiot.

Second: Otabek was, unarguably and forever more, even more of a disaster than Yuri had ever imagined.

Third: Later that evening, they would agree that no one would _ever_ hear about this, upon pain of death.

And fourth: Yuri hadn't actually said anything back to Otabek, who looked like he wanted to throw himself onto the baggage claim belt and disappear with the rest of the unclaimed luggage.

"Ask me on a fucking date, Altin."

Otabek choked on either air, embarrassment, or his own spit, and Yuri sighed. And smiled.

Yeah, he was definitely smiling.


End file.
